Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System by Takuya Wakizaki - Motive Inc. is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2022 Silver A' Design Award in Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design Competition Category.
SilverInterface· 2022
Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System
by Takuya Wakizaki - Motive Inc.
Client: Totetsu Kogyo Co., Ltd.
Silver A' Design Award Winner in Interface Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #134634The Design
About Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System
The client, founded at the request of the former Ministry of Railways to maintain and reinforce Japan’s rail system, is a general construction company with far-reaching expertise in the field of rail-related construction. The designer Takuya Wakizaki, the founder of MOTIVE Inc., created a wayfinding system for the institute, which the client built to develop human resources. For the design motif, the designer used rail lines-the core identity of the client. Through the design, the designer strove to create a space that would help trainees feel a sense of pride in their work.
The Recognition
About the Silver A' Design Award
Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.
Where to Get It
Award-Winning Wayfinding Design Services
We create intuitive navigation systems that transform complex spaces into seamless experiences. Our internationally recognized expertise in environmental information design helps organizations guide visitors naturally through their facilities. From corporate headquarters to cultural institutions, we craft wayfinding solutions that embody your brand identity while solving spatial challenges.
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Grand Interview
Your innovative use of rail lines as a core design motif in the Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System beautifully honors Japan's railway heritage - could you elaborate on how this conceptual foundation evolved during your creative process?
I believe it's a fundamental principle that wayfinding design should smoothly guide users to their destination, and this should never be forgotten.I would also like to add that if a space can function without signage, that's even better.In fact, I am a wayfinding designer, but there are no toilet pictograms in my house. That's because even without pictograms, everyone in my family knows where the toilet is since it's our home.This has been a long introduction, but based on this fundamental principle, as a wayfinding designer, I look for weaknesses in the space to ensure users can move comfortably within it.This makes it clear which junctions should display arrows.Next, when displaying arrows, I consider whether there's a method specific to that building.The idea for the rails in this work, as mentioned above, was derived from a very simple process: understanding what the space demands from wayfinding design and how to meet those needs.
The Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System incorporates actual rail scrap in the facility's name sign - what inspired this material choice, and how does it contribute to creating a sense of pride and connection for trainees?
The client for this training centre, Totetsu Kogyo, is a general construction company specialising in railway construction. And, they handle everything from laying railway tracks to constructing general buildings. Therefore, we proposed combining a retaining wall and rails to concisely represent the client's business activities.While many companies perform railway construction and related businesses, there were surprisingly no examples of this kind of representation, which worked to my advantage.
In developing the Totetsu Training Institute Wayfinding System, how did your research into behavioral patterns, such as following footprints in snow or walking on white lines, influence your approach to intuitive navigation design?
Design and everyday life are inextricably linked. And I believe that users don't read and act on information as carefully as we designers expect them to. I am exploring wayfinding design that uses intuitive methods embedded in everyday life, so that users don't have to carefully read information.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Due to the characteristics of the space, some of the rooms in the facility are in blind areas. The rail-line design marks flow lines to those rooms, offering affordances for spatial movement. In addition, the design team used rail scrap for the facility’s name sign and portions of the stairs to capture the company's personality with creative aesthetic accents.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Facility’s name sign - H174 x W2690
Rail line width - 60mm - Tags
- Wayfinding, Signage, Orientation Design, Environmental Design, Graphic
- Production Technology
- Facility’s name sign - Used rail scrap
Rail line-1 - Steel
Rail line-2 - PVC flooring
Typography - Floor marking film - Design Challenge
- Due to the characteristics of the space, some of the rooms in the facility are in blind areas. The rail-line design marks flow lines to those rooms, offering affordances for spatial movement. In other words, the rail-line design becomes a flow line. This line had to run through the building uninterrupted, and safety had to be taken to prevent users from stumbling. Since the rail lines were constructed by connecting the divided parts, severe dimensional accuracy is required. The rail lines' curves, intersections, branches, etc., were very difficult construction.
- Research
- You can find animals' whereabouts, such as foxes, by following the footprints left on the snow-covered ground.
Many people will have had the experience of walking across the pedestrian crossing only on the white line as a child.
If multiple shapes are drawn on the ground, Hopscotch will start. These unknowingly acquired behavioural habits, which are difficult to prove chemically, can be a hint for designing a wayfinding system. The marks on the floor are great for informing, inducing, and controlling behaviour. - Inspiration
- Totetsu Kogyo Co., Ltd., founded at the request of the former Ministry of Railways to maintain and reinforce Japan’s rail system, is a general construction company with far-reaching expertise in the field of rail-related construction. For the design motif, the design team used rail lines-the core identity of Totetsu Kogyo, which continues to thrive in the rail sector.
- Project Duration
- The project started in June 2019.
The project finished in December 2021.
Located in Ibaraki, JAPAN. - Operation Flow
- Rooms in blind areas or rooms that need to be accessed through narrow corridors are less likely to be recognized by users. With the rail-line design, users can see a destination in blind areas or beyond narrow corridors and change the inactive space into an active one.
- Patents
- Not applicable
- Team Members
- Architect - Totetsu Kogyo Co., Ltd.
Construction - Totetsu Kogyo Co., Ltd. - Image Credits
- All Images: Photographer Takeshi Shinto, 2021
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